To get me back into the "Christmas Spirit", someone write me a decent 3D engine.

You take life too seriously. If I took life seriously I wouldn't survive.

What we need is a decent hi-res, 2D car game....

I only take life seriously where the RO market is concerned, you can't fart around in it otherwise projects would hit the wall right, left and centre.

If review copies aren't been given out simply because companies don't trust the reviewers, then the RISC OS community is in a much worse state than I thought. I take it that this is an answer to the email I sent you a few days ago Nathan?

I haven't had time to reply to my emails yet.

As a reply to your suggestion that the RISC OS market is in a worse situation than you thought then it must be. It isn't just me, numerous people have been scuppered by review copies being copied.
I can't help it and since the market is so small, even 1 unit is worth a lot. As I said before, I know who has illegal copies of SunBurst and they were/are reviewers and SunBurst wasn't passed around willy-nilly, I was selective. Maybe the time has come to reissue Gordian Lock....thought so.

Maybe the time has come to reissue Gordian Lock....thought so.

The Gordian Lock protection system is particularly notorious for causing problems with different machines, and crippling programs which would otherwise have worked on modern computers.
Bringing back copy protection systems would be the final act of insanity in a market that is desperately small and can ill-afford more compatibility fiascos and ill-will.

Incidentally, I spent several years before I could even get into Star Fighter 3000, trying to break the copy protection. I resent this waste of my time.

Dave quote

Sorry if my message comes across as appearing to blame AA. My message is so strong because of the fear that dodgy activities still exist and the fact that I am not alone.
When EMD is ready I may cut chunks out of it and make a promo demo for review but I've had my fingers burnt many times before and I ain't taking no chances and I don't want a war of words along the lines of, "You gave AA a full version for review, why do we get a demo?"

Would this be okay?

You have two sides to copy prot, 1) It's there to be hacked or 2) If it isn't there it's easier to copy.

But we already know this. Anyways, we'll be putting EMD on a DVD so it's a bit more difficult to copy

Why do review versions have to have no copy protection? If you use the same protection with review copies that you do with the final version, surely that will ensure that no piracy goes on, since it's got to be as likely that a commercially sold copy is pirated as a review copy if they have the same protection!

A fully version of a game would obviously allow us to get a far greater insight into what the game is like - a demo would be nice for previews etc, I agree, but you can't really rate a game until you've played the shipping version - a demo with only a few levels might not demonstrate the variety of play necessary.

Otherwise, do make judgement calls on who gets review copies. If a site or magazine isn't big enough or well known/trusted to warrant a copy tell them that. It could lead to an awkward war of words as you say, in some cases, and I know that you need as much exposure for a game as is possible, but once it's been on a couple of the more well read websites and in Acorn User and any other of the popular off-line magazines most Acorn fanatics will have heard enough about a game to decide whether or not they want to buy it, and if some sites/magazines don't review the game, yet it has been in the others, you'll have to judge to whom to send review copies. Hell, you can even send a full version with the condition that it be returned within 3 weeks or something.

Basically, piracy will happen, unfortunately, but I don't think that reviewers are more likely to pirate software than anyone who buys the game. The review copy of destiny for example, came with a key disk and the full version's protection so no reviewer could copy the game any more than someone who had bought it. Would a system like this work for EMD etc?

Oh, and the DVD is a joke, yeah?

In principle though, protection is surely a good idea. In this market, it would prevent copying which restrict sales wouldn't it?

It is quite simple. Software only survives beyond the lifespan of storage hardware, because it is copyable. Once it ceases to be copyable, it deteriorates and dies fairly quickly. I have hordes of Beeb discs with unrecoverable software on them. The publishers don't care anymore; they made their money and ran years ago.

Whenever the player logs on to play the multiplayer, then perhaps the game has to authenticate with a remote server? - that woudl stop people usign other copys

Don't even start me on the WON authentication trouble I've had with Half-Life. It's a joke, doesn't work and is damned annoying (and the subject of a class action lawsuit, I think?). If someone could make a working version, yeah, in principle it's a good idea, but putting it into practice has given the big boys a bit of a knock, so I think it might be a bit hard to manage.

Whenever the player logs on to play the multiplayer, then perhaps the game has to authenticate with a remote server? - that woudl stop people usign other copys

Don't even start me on the WON authentication trouble I've had with Half-Life. It's a joke, doesn't work and is damned annoying (and the subject of a class action lawsuit, I think?). If someone could make a working version, yeah, in principle it's a good idea, but putting it into practice has given the big boys a bit of a knock, so I think it might be a bit hard to manage.

Besides which it's completely impractical for a homegrown RISC OS game. We don't have the resources to create a proper infrastructure of game servers. Network code is always likely to be peer to peer so there is no chance of authenticating the software (unless you have one central, authentication server but that's a bad idea - trust me)

Besides which it's completely impractical for a homegrown RISC OS game. We don't have the resources to create a proper infrastructure of game servers. Network code is always likely to be peer to peer so there is no chance of authenticating the software (unless you have one central, authentication server but that's a bad idea - trust me)

I'm not so sure - you wouldn't need a lot of infrastructure as you'd be tailoring it to a smaler audience. The computer AA is hosted on runs quite a few domains, and thanks to a clash between Linux and the all-in-one motherboard I used to build the machine appears to be only using 64MB of the 256 MB memory available. After modifying the Apache configuration to take this into account the server is doing it's job quite well. Once I scrap it and use something better I expect not to have to do much upgrading for some time after that.

I've had a brief look into this area - I'm not sure if I should mention this, but when I used to work for ArgoNet Andrew at R-Comp 'phoned me about running a quake server for RISC OS users only. There's a couple of projects I've wanted to get around to as well, such as a server for players of Doom etc. to find each other's machines (either via a fluid DNS server, or just uploading the IP address of the user's machine to a server, bearing in mind most ISPs use dynamic IP addresses). Another is an upgrades server so that programs can check if there's an upgrade available and download it automatically. None of this is brain surgery, although obviously I haven't had time to implement them.

The point being that if you want to go for a complete Quake server, it's possible but obviously will take more resources; so peer to peer reduces the need for server hardware, but you still need something just to list available servers, and preferably find friends. If you're not running a dedicated quake server on the meeting point, the meeting point would take up no more resources than another website (although you might use something other than a web browser to use it - ala Gamespy), and authentication could be bolted in without too much effort. It'd only be serving content in small chunks infrequently, not (necessarily) large web pages with lots of graphics.

I'm not so sure - you wouldn't need a lot of infrastructure as you'd be tailoring it to a smaler audience. The computer AA is hosted on runs quite a few domains, and thanks to a clash between Linux and the all-in-one motherboard I used to build the machine appears to be only using 64MB of the 256 MB memory available. After modifying the Apache configuration to take this into account the server is doing it's job quite well. Once I scrap it and use something better I expect not to have to do much upgrading for some time after that.

Admittedly it's not just a question of infrastructure. Games like Quake work because the code has been ported to run on a server and thus can act as an arbitrator. Given that a homegrown game is likely to include copious amounts of ARM code this would mean either porting the game logic to another OS or using something like a RISC PC as a server.

I've had a brief look into this area - I'm not sure if I should mention this, but when I used to work for ArgoNet Andrew at R-Comp 'phoned me about running a quake server for RISC OS users only. There's a couple of projects I've wanted to get around to as well, such as a server for players of Doom etc. to find each other's machines (either via a fluid DNS server, or just uploading the IP address of the user's machine to a server, bearing in mind most ISPs use dynamic IP addresses). Another is an upgrades server so that programs can check if there's an upgrade available and download it automatically. None of this is brain surgery, although obviously I haven't had time to implement them.

As you say finding other IP addresses is a problem although this could be done through ICQ, email or some other medium. Not elegant but possible.

Regarding my points above concerning the game server and peer to peer, perhaps true peer-to-peer is overkill. One of the players machines could be chosen as a game server. This would make synchronisation of game state easier but you'd have to keep network traffic to a minimum. IIRC this is how X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter worked. Of course if the Internet was fully multicast capable then it'd be a doddle.

The point being that if you want to go for a complete Quake server, it's possible but obviously will take more resources; so peer to peer reduces the need for server hardware, but you still need something just to list available servers, and preferably find friends. If you're not running a dedicated quake server on the meeting point, the meeting point would take up no more resources than another website (although you might use something other than a web browser to use it - ala Gamespy), and authentication could be bolted in without too much effort. It'd only be serving content in small chunks infrequently, not (necessarily) large web pages with lots of graphics.

Fantastic - when can we expect it?

Just kidding

If RiscStation don't hurry up, then those AMD-based laptops in Dixons are looking pretty nice for the price, and I guess I could make do with Linux instead

I suspect the RISCOS laptop will arrive later, rather than sooner.

Yes, I'm using RISCOS 3.1 on my Windows laptop, although I only use it for RISCOS specific work (mainly Mode 13 graphics and ChangeFSI at the moment). Although I do indulge in the occasional game of Lemmings....

Well, I'm using currently using a PIII 750 laptop running RedSquirrel and RISC OS 3.1 for my work at the moment, and it actually works remarkably well, for the RISCOS stuff that I need to do (although at the moment none of that involves coding at the moment, admittedly). It runs, at a rough guess, at about the speed of an ARM250, although without a real machine to test it by, I couldn't say for certain. It certainly doesn't feel sluggish, and I'm sure it will improve.

I suspect the RISCOS laptop will arrive later, rather than sooner.

Unfortunately neither appear to work on NT4, so I've never been able to test them - the machines at my last two jobs have both had NT4 installed. Even though I'd be unlikely to have that flavour of Windows on a laptop, it's a big investment to make without knowing I can actually use the emulators! I'd rather have a proper RISC OS one anyway, partly for loyalty reasons, but partly because the emulators will be slower and only run RISC OS 3 (albeit with a quad-MEMC 16MB available)

You never know, the authors might manage to get them up to ARM3 speeds, and PCs will only get faster - and there's nothing else available (short of an A4) if you need to use !Draw, Ovation Pro or any of the other Acorn packages on the move.